New Testament in a Year

4 ^1-2 When the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard about the greater crowds coming to him than to John to be baptized and to become his disciples—(though Jesus himself didn’t baptize them, but his disciples did)— ³ he left Judea and returned to the province of Galilee.

⁴ He had to go through Samaria on the way, ^5-6 and around noon as he approached the village of Sychar, he came to Jacob’s Well, located on the parcel of ground Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Jesus was tired from the long walk in the hot sun and sat wearily beside the well.

⁷ Soon a Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus asked her for a drink. ⁸ He was alone at the time as his disciples had gone into the village to buy some food. ⁹ The woman was surprised that a Jew would ask a “despised Samaritan” for anything—usually they wouldn’t even speak to them!—and she remarked about this to Jesus.

¹⁰ He replied, “If you only knew what a wonderful gift God has for you, and who I am, you would ask me for some living water!”

¹¹ “But you don’t have a rope or a bucket,” she said, “and this is a very deep well! Where would you get this living water? ¹² And besides, are you greater than our ancestor Jacob? How can you offer better water than this which he and his sons and cattle enjoyed?”

¹³ Jesus replied that people soon became thirsty again after drinking this water. ¹⁴ “But the water I give them,” he said, “becomes a perpetual spring within them, watering them forever with eternal life.”

¹⁵ “Please, sir,” the woman said, “give me some of that water! Then I’ll never be thirsty again and won’t have to make this long trip out here every day.”

¹⁶ “Go and get your husband,” Jesus told her.

^17-18 “But I’m not married,” the woman replied.

“All too true!” Jesus said. “For you have had five husbands, and you aren’t even married to the man you’re living with now.”

¹⁹ “Sir,” the woman said, “you must be a prophet. ²⁰ But say, tell me, why is it that you Jews insist that Jerusalem is the only place of worship, while we Samaritans claim it is here at Mount Gerizim,^[a] where our ancestors worshiped?”

^21-24 Jesus replied, “The time is coming, ma’am, when we will no longer be concerned about whether to worship the Father here or in Jerusalem. For it’s not where we worship that counts, but how we worship—is our worship spiritual and real? Do we have the Holy Spirit’s help? For God is Spirit, and we must have his help to worship as we should. The Father wants this kind of worship from us. But you Samaritans know so little about him, worshiping blindly, while we Jews know all about him, for salvation comes to the world through the Jews.”

²⁵ The woman said, “Well, at least I know that the Messiah will come—the one they call Christ—and when he does, he will explain everything to us.”

²⁶ Then Jesus told her, “I am the Messiah!”

²⁷ Just then his disciples arrived. They were surprised to find him talking to a woman, but none of them asked him why, or what they had been discussing.

^28-29 Then the woman left her waterpot beside the well and went back to the village and told everyone, “Come and meet a man who told me everything I ever did! Can this be the Messiah?” ³⁰ So the people came streaming from the village to see him.